dCon Mechanisms

How does control get decentralized into the hard ground of human affairs? Fractiousness, self-interest, Twitter — it’s tough out there. The forces of disorder are rife throughout society, rough and ready to sabotage the forces of natural progress.

There are three Decentralized Control Mechanisms: one primarily political, the others primarily economic.

Democracy

Democracy is the original dCon mechanism and still the most miraculous invention known to Man, Women too, who take to it like birds to flight.

Direct, representative, parliamentary, republican, at the national level they’re all good. Not always unalloyed, but good nonetheless.

Why has America been the world’s greatest country since populations exploded two centuries ago? We’re the country that invented true Democracy, that has lived it longest and therefore put it to the most tests. Thus we’ve made the most of our opportunities over nearly 2½ centuries, avoided national suicide because of Democracy’s tempering effect and long-served as the most popular destination for aspirational people around the world. Simple but true.

Power to the People. No Autocratic Usurpations or plain old Democracy: However you declare it, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, George Mason and the trio of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay bequeathed the greatest gift to humanity since Moses. How does their gift work?

Decentralization of primary political power via Decentralization of Political Control. That’s how.

Private Property Rights

Extreme respect for private property rights spreads ownership interests far and wide, making it a fundamental Burkean Nation touchstone. Burke recognized and a tour through an owner-occupied neighborhood confirms that broadly distributed private property is a surefire mechanism for political stability.

Ronald Reagan said “De Soto and his colleagues have examined the only ladder for upward mobility … the other path to development and the one true path. It is the people’s path … it leads somewhere. It works.”

Does bipartisan praise get better than that?

Vouchers

The great Milton Friedman first articulated vouchers’ modern utility, a simple but seminal contribution to improving the welfare of modern civilization. His Nobel Prize came for other contributions, but vouchers may save civilization yet. Why?

They are silver bullets that carry purchasing power – a form of property right – directly to people at the individual and family level. That mainlines distributed economic control right into the populace – where it’s needed most.

The Left hates vouchers. HATES THEM!!! They bypass government’s monopoly on the distribution of services and therefore of public sector union jobs. Teacher Unions have a fatwa out against Education Vouchers. Pity poor students who desperately want them. Think they hate them? Think their parents hate them? Hell no. They’ll walk across a bed of hot coals to get ’em, as shown in Waiting for Superman.

HealthCare Vouchers could deftly solve the uninsured problem in America, or at least go a long way to solving it. Because dCon is natural and not artificial like cCon, healthcare vouchers would naturally control costs, minimize fraud and make people feel more in control over their lives. HCVs would – however – take power away from the IRS, HHS and CMS, making vouchers kryptonite to the contemporary Democratic Party currently controlling the White House and Senate.

Keep in mind the goal of Decentralized Control is not to destroy the Democratic Party or even to help the Republican Party. dCon is what it is, a force of nature. Chips will fall where they may.

dCon Mechanisms

Democracy, Private Property Rights and Vouchers are the three mechanisms that naturally distribute control throughout a political economy. Societal success follows in their decentralizing wake.